37 years on

It being our wedding anniversary, Caroline picked roses for our breakfast table. With all the rain we've had, it's been such a year for them! The photograph shows just part of one of our two Rambling Rectors: on the other side of the house, there's Buff Beauty, New Dawn and Graham Thomas (supposed to be climbing, but refusing to do so). On the boundary, we have Madame Alfred Carrière, Souvenir de Claudius Denoyel, Lady Hillingdon, Zéphirine Drouhin, Félicité et Perpétue and (my favourite) an enormous Compassion, amongst others. Henry Robinson gave us one of his rare ramblers when we first moved in, which is all over our outbuilding (neither he nor I can remember which one). Oh, and the Albertine I thought had died is in flower again this year. Up the apple trees we have climbing Iceberg. By the arbour Sweet Juliet is going great guns as always.

The broad beans are enormous, and I have started digging early potatoes (Annabelle): we had both for supper last night. The leef beet and rocket have bolted, and there seem to be absolutely no parsnips coming up.

Roses

At lunch in Coln Rogers on Thursday, we had news about our old house (situated about half way between there and here in Cheltenham): we were there from 1983 to 1994, during which time I planted more than 50 different varieties of roses in the garden. The news was that they have now all been uprooted, as the people who bought the house from us (Londoners) seldom use the house, and have ordered the garden to be turned over to minimum maintenance.

A variety I never tried was one of my mother's favourites Iceberg; but my sister Charlotte gave Caroline a pair of the climbing version of Iceberg a few birthdays ago: we planted these up against our old apple trees, and - as you can just see from my photograph - they are doing really well.